Before the Jagger update of Google started; I was ranking on the top 2 pages for all of my primary & secondary phrases. :D But, after the update things seem to have changed a lot. My keywords are not to be found on the first 2 pages. The rankings have dropped down to 3rd page onwards. It is not we are involved in any link farm as such.
What could be the probable reason apart from that? :confused:
But, for that matter those same keywords of my site are ranking on the first page in yahoo & msn. ;)
seeking help from all the professionals out here :o

I read somewhere that Google now is trying to "make sense" of searches, i.e if you are searching for a sheriff's office in Miami, the pages that shows up first in a search are the gov or us sites or whetever the sheriff have decided to use, and then other pages that have info comes up after that.
So, Google is trying to decide what you want to see (Relevant Searches). In the middle of the update you could see hundreds on us and gov sites and nothing else if you searched for department of corrections. Now they are a little bit more diverse but not a lot.

The whole point of many of the updates is that the ranking algorithm changes a bit, which means that rankings are changed - up and down. It's the nature of updates. It would be pointless doing them if they didn't affect the rankings.

The latest Google update, Jagger, has search engine optimisers all around the world in a state of disorientation. With Jagger, Google once again attempted to outsmart huge numbers of SEOs who had spent a vast amount of time trying to out-link their competitors by legitimately but falsely making their websites seem more relevant and important than they really are.

We all know that links carry significant weight within the algorithms of all the major search engines. As SEOs we have added value by swapping links and placing links on free directories. While there's nothing wrong with this in essence, we have to addmit that a lot of these sites don't really show that they are necessarily relevant or important to the host site.

Google much prefers it when the linking site adds value to enhance the value of a site's content or to increase credibility and authority. And that's exactly what Jagger was meant to do - when it found those sites, it simply adjusted their ranking to more accurately reflect their true importance, now deemed as:
1) Increased importance placed on Inbound Links Relevancy
2) Increased importance placed on Outbound Links Relevancy
3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories related to Nos. 1/2)

Google is downgrading or eliminating reciprocal links as a measure of popularity. In short, Jagger undid the hard work of thousands - if not millions - of SEOs. As a result, hard-won high rankings and revenues plummeted.

All well and good, but I wonder then if the architects of this fine update could explain why the search term "web site design bangkok" had an error 404 page in French at the #1 spot (now #5), for a month (http://www1.oecd.org/error.htm)? So much for relevancy!

A colleague's site disappeared from the listings for 2 months. Now we find that Jagger has almost de-listed us - and there has been little link building involved in this site.

When I next talk to my clients and they ask the same question, does anyone think Google will carry some responsibility for this latest raft of online business failures?

When I next talk to my clients and they ask the same question, does anyone think Google will carry some responsibility for this latest raft of online business failures?
But surely, as one site drops down another site raises up?

One of our clients has suffered so badly from this update that while, technically you comment is a fair assessment, the point is that his site has no recips, no black arts, just good quality, relevant links. He has lost his business because of this shabby update. The point I was trying to get across is how on earth can an error 404 in French get to #1 while all around are losing business?

I've heard many "reasons" for the Jagger update, but it does seem to the naked eye that Google are re-building their index from scratch - this would suggest to me why Gov/academic sites appeared top for a while (a logic place to start indexing from).

Looking at search results now it seems that the pages ranking well have lots of content and little or no "optimisation". As was said further up, maybe Google are aiming for more relevance in their results and less manipulation?

Not much consolation for your customer though.

This particular site has both a lot of content and optimisation - far more than competitors. A colleague of mine commented today that on looking for 'estate agents hong kong' there is now a blog at #3, titled "Hong Kong estate agents are scum". People want to find estate agents, not individuals with gripes and axes to grind. Is this what we can expect from the update - blog sites?

Very true, I don't know what they are playing at ranking a blog so highly - I guess Google will live or die by these results. If they keep churning out crap then people will start to search elsewhere and businesses will concentrate their efforts on MSN, Yahoo etc.

I truly think that after months of this, the effects are ill thought out. I agree, people will start to migrate to Yahoo and MSN if blogs start to represent 'relevant searches', as they are fond of quoting. I guess the reason that lies deep behind this update was to make AdWords flourish, thus their stock market value goes through the roof as revenue generation becomes forever stronger. Wrong. People will migrate. I think they have miscalculated its effects.

If I, as a user, have to resort to clicking on AdWords, then I will regard Google as a failure and will definitely look elsewhere.

Hi
Actually google updates their algorithm on regulary basis to increase relevancy of the search result page. In last google major updates (called florida update) i.e. in november 2003 so many websites also affected. but after some time relevant sites come up on SERP.
In Jagger updates google considered several things which is used by spammers to trick the search engine. Google not only count incoming links relevancy but also count outgoing links relevancy. Content duplication is the major problem of the web. so google try to resolve this problem also.
So, i think even jagger update also doesn't affect relevant sites.

regards,
Deelip

"Google closed last Monday, the first trading day of the year, at $202.71, the first time the company closed above $200 during its brief history as a publicly traded firm...Moreover, Google is trading at about 60 times 2005 earnings estimates and a stock split isn't going to make that valuation any cheaper, either." CNN Jan. 9, 2005


"Google's share price got a dose of high octane in the past four weeks, soaring from $300 a share to hitting in excess of $400 on Thursday. Does zero to 60 come to mind? And the messages boards that track the sentiment of Google investors have been a buzz, with some predicting a further run up to $500 a share." NEWS.COM, November 17, 2005

Not sure if this is a document from Google or not but my sources say that it is. The document is Googles Spam guide that they use for their employyes to discover SE spammers and how to find out what relevance a site has to a certain search. :confused:

you can get it here: http://www.keywordsbiz.com/guide.pdf

I think that Jagger has outsmarted us all. The reason for this view lies deep behind this update: to make AdWords flourish, thus pushing their stock market value through the roof for revenue generation to become forever stronger.

To quote CNN on Jan. 9, 2005: "Google closed last Monday, the first trading day of the year, at $202.71, the first time the company closed above $200 during its brief history as a publicly traded firm...Moreover, Google is trading at about 60 times 2005 earnings estimates and a stock split isn't going to make that valuation any cheaper, either."

Now, to quote NEWS.COM almost a year later, on November 17, 2005: "Google's share price got a dose of high octane in the past four weeks, soaring from $300 a share to hitting in excess of $400 on Thursday. Does zero to 60 come to mind? And the messages boards that track the sentiment of Google investors have been a buzz, with some predicting a further run up to $500 a share."

But have they got it wrong? I think this update, disguised as an attempt to bring in 'relevancy', is truly a market manipulation intended to push up revenues but through limited relevency, forcing users to use AdWords.

One client recently complained that his ad spend is almost 100% up against a year ago. He halved the price and still gets the same volume of hits. It is interesting to note that in this period Google's share price has witnessed an unprecedented but identical percentage uplift.

All very well for the shareholders but are internet users going to accept the return of useless blog sites instead of relevant companies and products in their searches? I think not. A growing number will migrate to Yahoo, leaving Google's shareholders, in the very near future, wondering why the share price has plumeted.

There is a quite brilliant stock advisor in Austria that believes this to be the real rationale behind the update. I now concur with his words.

How cynical. I suppose we'll now have the usual call to boycott Google because 'sites that I am associated with have been hit by the update, so Google has obviously engineered the serps to suit AdWords sales'.

Google is out to make money. It is NOT a non-profit "public service" company anymore, if it ever was, and it is, as far as *I* can see all about how to make money from the ads.
If they just tried to check where their ads are placed, what type of site it is, if it is just a place holder for their ads without real content, and removed these sites from their index then a lot of "real" sites whould show up in the index instead of AdSense-spammer sites. i HAVE EMAILED gOOGLE ABOUT SITES AND GIVEN THEM ADDRESSES TO CHECK BUT THE RESPONSE WAS THAT THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT THE OOOpppPPPSSSS...cApS lOCK... quality of the sites. It is up to the webmaster to have good content, so the sites I reported are still there, some of them in top positions. :mad:

This update, with the millions of dollars and hours spent, is about upping their revenue. It's that simple. And there's no cynicism about that. Do you really think a company can actually double their share price within a year without introducing new products, services or efficency? This is a client telling me, not a personal opinion. I didn't believe at first but his campaigns did double in price - and with it Google's share price. You think they're the good samaritans of the web?

My client, when he saw the doubling of his ad spend, wrote to Google about this. The very next day they gave him prime position and a top-bar ad. Why?

It's still a cynical view, even if it's your client's view. Clients are not known to have the most informed view of things. They only know about their own tiny area, but they don't know what caused changes in their own tiny area.

Share prices are not the same as a company's actual value. Share prices reflect the confidence that some people have in a company's future. Actual value is what a company is literally worth. I'm sure there are many cases, but I remember a case of a .com in the UK that went public at the best part of a billion pound sale price - that's a lot more in dollars. But the company had never made a penny. They continually lost millions after millions. Share prices reflect confidence, and not the literal value.

And no, I don't think that Google is the good samaritan of the web. But I do think that they are not stupid enough to do what your client suggests they've done. Can you imagine what would happen to them and their share price if word got out? And do you think that their employees are so trustworthy as to never divulge such things?

Was #1, now #7 on 'web site design bangkok": www.oecd.org/dsti/sti/it/secur/prod/PRIV-EN.HTM

#3 on 'estate agents hong kong':
www.flyingchair.net/story.php?storyID=1220

Please explain your rationale for relevancy on these sample search terms if Google are so honourable

It's very easy to explain. They are ranked according to a dumb programme that counts scores, and those pages scored sufficiently well to be ranked where they are. There are countless similar examples. I compete for one searchterm where the #1 ranked page is totally non-relevant, but it outscores all other pages for the searchterm. That's the nature of imperfect search engines.

You mean an error 404 in French can actually be explained away for web site design?

Does it mean that we might have a future where Google will not have much importance? But, I have known from a source that Googles share in the online search market is up from 34.8% from last year to 39% this year.
What do u'll think about this?

Not that there's a crystal ball in my sights but if this hunch turns out to have a grain of truth to it and internet search becomes dominated with mindless blogs about someone's holiday romance or what happened to their cat then the 39% will start to fall off. The update is not that bad overall, but in patches it is quite appalling: to find a rant about estate agents in Hong Kong as scumbags instead of a list of real estate agents is ridiculous. I certainly will discontinue to use it if I'm right and all we find is a list of blogs and AdWords.

You mean an error 404 in French can actually be explained away for web site design?
404s sometimes occupy top rankings, because, as I said, they score better for the searchterm than most of the other pages. That is the only reason they are in those positions, and it is the only reason why all ranking pages have the rankings they have.

If you view the cache of those pages, you'll see that other pages link to them, and that the searchterm is in the link text(s). Link text is the single most powerful ranking factor. Those 404 pages are there because they score more ranking points for the searchterms than most other pages.

but I think that Google has outsmarted themselves with their updates and that people are going away from monstrous search engines like Google to smaller more targeted search engines :D

Certainly there has been a few changes with the Jagger update, the biggest one we have observed is the ranking for Amazon. Com, almost every Item Amazon sells is listed on the first page of Google. Perhaps it should have been called The Amazon Update... HO HO HO

Even the keyword "santa ho ho ho", Amazon ranks 2nd and 3rd at Google.

Jagger must be letting the dust settle, back at #1 for main keyword. Although in the top ten is Yahoo's directory and an exact duplicate URL in #1 & #9 for another keyword. :) This happened sometime in the last 24 hours.

Ya know, you'd think that senority would have something to do with it too, but apparently not. :(

I am not sure but to me it looks like Google is trying to make relevance the number one priority for a search.
I have a site with tons of links to jail information, prison search, inmates search and stuff like that and it has been in top for a long time. After the Google updates it has plumetted (spelling???) and what you see now using my keywords is mostly gov sites and sites to sheriffs offices and other sites. Inmates locators and other sites like mine comes way down. From that I can see that Google is trying to understand with some magical formula what people expect to see when they search. Could it be: sheriff = 1 point, gov site = 1 point? So if you are searching for a sheriff and it is a gov site you get 2 points but if you only have the sheriff part you only get 1 point....
I KNOW it is NOT that easy and that their algoritm, if they have one, is a lot more complicated, but it sure looks like the way they are thinking.

I do beg to differ with PhilC. As I said before, this update was purported to be in the name of 'relevancy'. I now think it's to do with share price manipulation but no matter. whilst this particular 404 has 11,700 inbound links what in the name of fortune has the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development with a title "<title>HTTP Error 404</title>" got to do with "web site design bangkok"?

Let's go even further: It returns at positions 5,6, 8 and 9
5) Bangkok hotel and Thailand travel guide (irrelevant to web site design in Bangkok and instead of looking at the title and on-page copy has used the url of the designers, Web Design Copyright © 2005 by Asia Web Direct Co., Ltd.).
6) Asian Institute of Technology (irrelevant to web site design in Bangkok as the site is about "advanced education in engineering, science").
8)The Peninsula Bangkok (irrelevant to web site design in Bangkok as this is one of Bangkok's premier hotels and nowhere on the home page is there even the mention of the word "web").
9) Finally, Conference on Trade and Development (irrelevant to web site design in Bangkok as this has again not applied the title but "Free Website Stats and Website counter by WebSTAT")

This update is beyond a joke.

I don't recall any official statement about the Jagger updates being in the name of relevancy. I do recall that the 3rd of them hoped to deal with canonical issues and would affect rankings, but I don't remember any official statement about the first two. I'd got the impression that the first two were to do with spam, but that was just an impression.

I can assure you that, with every Google update, there are those who believe that the changed rankings are intended to force people to buy AdWords. They are usually people who's rankings have suffered. It's nothing new, and it will be the same with every update for the foreseeable future.

<added>
I'm not defending those non-relevant listings. I'm only telling you why they are there. I'm not suggesting that Google is getting it right by ranking them there. Search engines are a very long way from being perfect. It could be that the 404s used to be about the searchterm, and they acquired plenty of IBL link texts to suit it, but the pages have since been deleted.

Don't forget that the 404 Titles and content don't mean that the engines receive a 404 header code. It's quite possible that they receive a 200 header code with the custom 404 pages, and the IBLs/link texts ensure that the pages maintain those high rankings.

On the bright side, nobody is going to click on those non-relevant rankings, so they can be discounted :)

I have a similar thing with one of my searchterms. The #1 ranking has nothing at all to do with the searchterm, but it doesn't bother me because people who used the searchterm aren't going to click on it, or even if they do, they'll be straight back to the serps. In that case, the luck will have run out for the "I'm feeling lucky" people.

Occupying position 9 is: Conference on Trade and Development. Here, they have not indexed the title of the page, or indeed text linksor on-page copy, but have seen it fitting to index "Free Website Stats and Website counter by WebSTAT".

Let's take a look at web site design bangkok as it is today and see why the SITE on which the page ranking for the 404 might just be considered an important one - sitting at #8 today

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-11,GGLD:en&q=web+site+design+bangkok

Yahoo linkdomain:1,150,000

Title: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Description: Welcome to the OECD, an international organisation helping governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalised economy.

True, the index page redirects to .home so it shows PR0 - but interior pages are PR7, not an easy feat, and it isn't impossible that the homepage would be PR8 were it not redirected.

http://www.oecd.org/about/0,2337,en_2649_201185_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

but not unexpected for an international organization. Obviously, there are some serious technical issues - and it is NOT an SEO'd site.

When just typing the homepage URL in:
HTTP/1.1·302·Object·Moved(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://www.oecd.org/redirect/(CR)(LF)
Server:·Microsoft-IIS/5.0(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html(CR)(LF)
Connection:·close(CR)(LF)
Set-Cookie:·vgnvisitor=h080M0001kM00048gVuXsDQbz8;·pat h=/;·expires=Saturday,·06-Sep-2014·23:50:08·GMT(CR)(LF)
Content-Length:·152(CR)(LF)
(CR)(LF)

Content (Length = 152):
<head><title>Document·Moved</title></head>(LF)
<body><h1>Object·Moved</h1>This·document·may·be·found·<a·HREF="http://www.oecd.org/redirect/">here</a></body>
DoneNot just one thing is looked at for ranking - relevance and importance both count.

========================================

FlyingChair.net is PR6 - lots of good inbound links, obviously a popular site. And why would that page rank for estate agents Hong Kong? Because the page is OPTIMIZED for the exact phrase and others aren't.

Not all blogs are created equal - take a look at the PR and quality of some of the links to the homepage. Besides it is not a competitive term so between that and good links, good rankings are a shoo-in with halfway decent onpage optimization.

Thanks for taking an interest, Marcia. The point is that however high the PR, what has it got to do with web site design in Bangkok. Google now produces utterly irrelevant search results. Both Yahoo! and MSN, with a few anomalies, lists companies whose business is web site design in Bangkok. That is what people search on and where this series of updates has gone seriously awry...

I understand why this site has got to the top of the search and it's merely a gripe about blogs becoming the forerunners of internet search. My real point is Google's integrity in 'relevancy' I'm questioning.

You're quite welcome. :)

The point is that however high the PR, what has it got to do with web site design in Bangkok. Apparently there's something making it appear as though it's relevant - besides, these anamolies are always a learning experience. I think we can see that the reports of the death of PageRank have been highly over-rated.

For the "chairs" site - not all blogs are created equal, some are important by virtue of quality, uniqueness and inbound linking associations. And also a learning experience, we can see the effects of good on-page optimization. I didn't check IBLs to the specific page, but best guess is that if we look hard we'll find some good ones.

Hi Marcia,

While we talk about 'learning experiences' and the like, 'the death of PR' and associated issues, my clients, especially in a country like Thailand where some farangs almost exclusively rely on my SEO to bring food and water to their tables, have witnessed inflated costs to their AdWords campaigns and being completely dropped from Google's rankings. This is not the case with Yahoo! and MSN. The upshot of it all is that their online businesses have been slashed and burned by this update. My own view is that Google have got the update utterly wrong and I need to explain this to clients in a language they will understand. I also believe the rationale behind the update is to inflate their share price and they have used technical language to fool everyone into using AdWords instead of search. There has been a 100% uplift in the share price since the IPO and clients increasingly complain about the doubling of ad spend in the same period.

My competitor has turned their blog in to a Store! Thouhgt Blogs were meant to be ramblings, diaries, articles, in genreal "Posts" - an out right STORE! ...and it ranks #1 in one of the major SE's :mad:

If we're not careful, the web will become a meaningless jumble of anodyne opinion-makers with businesses going back to brick and mortar. What a waste!

I agree 100%! In the mean time we cannot even sink or swim. The only choice we have is to roll over on our backs and hope to stay afloat! :(

Maybe, perhaps, the HTTP Error 404 site shows up because HTTP Error 404 is highly relevant to "web site design" in general. Or... A recent article at WebProNews.com (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20051207TheKeywordsYouNeverThoughtOf.html) shows how "october" is one of the most important keywords for the Apple iPod because both the iPod Nano and iPod Video were released in October. Maybe this is a similar case and HTTP Error 404 is highly relevant to "web site design bangkok" because a lot of web designers in bangkok use custom HTTP Error 404 pages a lot or something.

And as for blogs... who ever said blogs were only for ramblings and personal opinions??? Most blog software nowadays is just a Content Management System which in my opinion is ideal for many web businesses because it can allow them to place fresh, relevant, link rich content to their site quickly and efficiently. From a customer relationship management point of view, they allow a secondary touch point and build trust. If you look around the web, many of your favorite websites and even some big time players now use blogs. IE Searchenginewatch.com, Adobe, Macromedia, Google, GM, Sun, Microsoft, Nike, Pepsi, Apple, NY Times, and Yahoo!.

So yeah, blogs will probably (and in most cases already have) take over a lot of websites, because essentially search engines AND customers love them!

Content rich blogs I accept, but Patent Leather Red $14.95 and a picture,
Patent Leather Blue $14.95 and a picture, Patent Leather Blue $14.95, and a picture, Patent Leather Pink $14.95 and a picture - is not content rich.

With regard to the 404 error - it's a deadend unless it has been set up to offer a menu or something to indicate the site is not dead.

The http error 404 site isn't dead, it even places a link to the homepage of the site both(the http error 404 page itself and the homepage of the site) of which return 200 ok headers.

blogs will probably (and in most cases already have) take over a lot of websites, because essentially search engines AND customers love them

In my case, Google doesn't like my blog at all - it's been 5 months w/ lots of links and I haven't even been indexed!

And I worried because I have waited 2 weeks now!
I submitted 2 sites a couple of weeks ago and I usually don't habe any problems getting into their index but with these 2 new sites it seems tough and I am not sure why. I have added articles to the sites and that is the only reason I can see that they are not indexed yet (duplicate content???)
I can't even guess why your site isn't in there after 5 months!!! What's your url?

Let's get back on track about the effects of the Jagger update, rather than specifics that have already been covered.

Meantime, there are some sites that never did see the light of day at Google that now have rankings, with Google being the top referrer.

Obviously, there's been a big algo change, with different weights being applied to different factors. That's the challenge we face, trying to figure out what those are when the changes happen.